In Search of a Panacea: Herb Collection in the Himalayas

Nabhyadevi’s words are calm yet firm, like the highlands she adores. “These mountains are my home. I feel restless if I am not in them,” she says. Even though we had but a fraction of her experience of the Himalayas, we could appreciate the mystic pull she felt for the mountains. Her love, professed so simply, reminded us of the Scottish mountaineer Nan Sheperd’s poetic reflection on her relationship with such places: “…often the mountain gives itself most completely when I have no destination, when I reach nowhere in particular, but have gone out merely to be with the mountain as one visits a friend with no intention but to be with him”. As is the case with love, we realised that Nabhyadevi’s nearly 50-year-old relationship with the mountains navigates complicated terrain.

Our own relationship with, and interest in the mountains began when we trekked remote, albeit popular, Himalayan routes in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Travelling offseason meant less trekkers on the trails. On rare occasions, when we did encounter people, they would be shepherds, or groups of people locally called “jadi-booti wale” or herb collectors. The latter spent a lot of time outdoors, and over a period of several weeks collected herbs hidden in the deep nooks of the vast mountains. They travel with the bare minimum, living off the land as they scout for rare and exotic plants. Sometimes, they use seasonal or abandoned shepherd encampments to spend the night. Entire days are spent wandering in the mountains looking for specific plants whose roots or leaves have medicinal or cosmetic value. Over 100 hundred varieties of medicinal plants have been discovered in the entire Himalayan region, and there may be many more. Some varieties of these plants have roots that look like fossilised insects, while others are so ordinary looking that the average person will miss them. The herb collectors have in-depth practical knowledge of the herbs they collect, though they tend to focus on collecting five or six varieties. They are experts in identifying local flora, and know their flowering and fruiting patterns.

“Take this, it’s called kadduva, it takes care of everything — headache, stomach ache, body ache, colds, coughs…,” said a young herb collector we met on a trek in Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand. The plant takes its name from its bitter taste and has locally variant names like kadu, kaduvi (Scrophulariaceae family) etc. The small, precious two-inch stem he gave us, according to him, was worth quite a lot of money.

Herb collectors also have intimate knowledge of the wildlife dependent on the flora, the behaviour of wildlife, and how to evade danger. For example, in the Sainj, Tirthan, and Jiwa valleys you find the Himalayan brown bear and Asiatic black bear, the elusive snow leopard, Indian leopard, resilient Himalayan goral and tahr, timid yet curious red fox and pika. Bumping into an unsuspecting Himalayan bear doesn’t figure high on anyone’s priority list.

Many regions in the Himalayas are designated “Protected Areas”, owing to the presence of vulnerable and endangered species like the western tragopan, Himalayan musk deer, or snow leopard. This means that collection of herbs is an illegal activity, and people can be arrested by forest department officials. Such Protected Areas can span over 1,000 sq km and the sheer expanse and ruggedness of the land leaves scope for stealthy entry and exit. Nabhyadevi tells us she and her husband enter some areas late at night. Once deep inside the valley, they are unlikely to stumble upon any park rangers or guards. He drops her in the distant mountains and returns to the village. She may spend up to 10 days alone, traversing the remotest locations in search of valuable herbs. She neither loses her way nor does she run low on supplies. She is familiar with the sights and sounds of the mountain, as if it were an extension of her body.

Over the years, the demand for medicinal herbs such as keedajadi and nahani (naini) has increased and led to a rise in the number of herb collectors. Because of over-harvesting, many of these herbs are becoming increasingly hard to find, especially in unprotected areas. Protected areas like national parks, though guarded by law, still have many herb collectors entering illegally. This is a sensitive issue because local people have been wandering these mountains all their life, and depend on natural resources partly for their own health and living, and partly to earn money. When a large region is designated a national park or wildlife sanctuary and becomes “protected”, local people lose access to lands they have considered their backyard for generations. Coupled with this, an increase in the commercial demand for valuable herbs can fetch a local collector anywhere between Rs 800-2,000 for 10 gm — a princely sum given their limited earnings.

Nabhyadevi’s family claims that some herbs can cure cancer and have a huge demand from foreign countries. They swear by the medicinal properties of some plants and use them regularly for common ailments. Mostly the herbs and roots collected are washed and dried, before being passed on to intermediaries. For their personal use, the mode of usage varies; some are powdered while others are boiled in water.

Nabhyadevi also admits that the abundance of certain special herbs has drastically reduced over the years. Her foraging trips yield much less compared to 10 years ago. Her audible sigh seems to mingle with the frigid, white wisps of air descending onto the mountains in a ghostly embrace.

Forest Departments are trying to address the illegal herb collection by conducting surprise checks in the park. They rely on local people to act as informants, but ironically, people from the same community risk their lives to collect the herbs. Who will turn on whom? This creates pressures within the community.

In a bid to involve local communities in conserving biodiversity, some park managements (like the Great Himalayan National Park) have attempted to employ them in developing and maintaining medicinal plant nurseries. Such initiatives aim to generate alternative sources of income for people, so that illegal herb collection is curbed. However, since many of these plants have a specific ecological niche within an ecosystem and long maturation time, creating viable nurseries remains a challenge. Institutes like G B Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment and Sustainable Development (Almora), Forest Research Institute (Dehradun), Wildlife Institute of India (Dehradun), and Forest Departments of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, have undertaken projects that focus on the collection, documentation, and preservation of ethnobotanical knowledge originating from these areas. There are also initiatives by the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE) and National Medicinal Plants Board that explore in-situ methods of cultivating medicinal plants.

Back in Mumbai, as we walk the streets, the sight of a familiar minivan evokes new emotions. The side is covered with a sheet depicting snow-clad peaks and the words “Himalaya Ayurvedic Camp” and “Jadi-booti Camp”. We had always wondered where these herbs are from. Are they really from the Himalayas? Are they truly effective in treating ailments? Now at least we can claim to know a small part of this story; effective or not, these herbs play a central role in the sensitive mountainous ecosystem, as well as the lives of the humans and animals that live there.

This article is a collective reflective note based on the second author’s visit to the aforementioned regions.